


the best gift

by mako_lies (wingeddserpent)



Series: The Ruin [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Being Read To, Child!Gladio, Double Drabble, Drabble Sequence, Family Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 12:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14832054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/pseuds/mako_lies
Summary: Four times someone read to Gladio, and one time he read to someone else.





	the best gift

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gladio Fluff Week on Tumblr.
> 
> "The Malboro at the End of this Book" shamelessly based on "The Monster at the End of this Book" by Jon Stone.

_“His tongue was wetly gentle, moving hot against hers. Her hands cupped his dear face, even as her knee slid up between his thick thighs, ‘I won’t let you go again,’ her promise fierce—”_ Grace’s husband coughed. Insistently.

Pink-faced, Clarus shuffled into the nursery. Their infant son reached for the book she had stopped reading to him. “What are you doing to our child, Grace?” asked Clarus, with that telltale curve of a smile.

“I am reading to our son. It’s wonderful for bonding, darling. And good for his language acquisition.”

“Grace, they’ve done nothing but neck for five pages. Is that the—vocabulary—you hope he acquires?”

She could never dream of rolling her eyes in court, but in her own home she had no reason to hold back. She rolled them. “Men,” she told Gladiolus, before she turned back to his father, “He’s too young for it to be inappropriate.”

“Yes, but—”

“No. If his life is anything like this book, I will die a happy woman. If you want to steep him in death with your war ballads, do it where I can’t hear.” A family of Shields—her wish for her son—

Would surely remain that.

+

Gladio, at three, loved stories with a ferocity matched only by his love of mud. And in that firm, peculiar way of toddlers, he insisted on being the one to turn the page. Without exception.

Such an eagerness for learning was easy to reward, but it did raise some practical problems. _“Don’t turn another page, for there is a Malboro at the end of this book, and I—”_

Wide-eyed, Gladio gasped comically around the chubby fingers in his mouth. And turned the page. “ _You turned another page~!Maybe you don’t understand, but—_ ”

Another page.

Another.

Gladio giggled flipping pages without pause. “Another page~!” Clarus crowed, and his son displayed the cardboard back of the book. “Looks like you’re the Malboro at the end of this book, rascal!”

He found that particularly sensitive bit of baby fat at his stomach, and tickled Gladio. Who shrieked, laughing wildly, “NOOOOOO!”

Clarus stopped. “Do you want me to stop tickling you?”

“…No...” Gladio giggled with expectation, and Clarus couldn’t deny him anything.

He laughed as he tickled his son, knowing that Gladio would insist on another book once they calmed down. But Clarus found himself okay with that.

How short these days would be.

+

“What does the C say?” Jared coaxed, as Gladiolus furrowed his brow at the page. Learning how to read was, indeed, a daunting task.

“ _Kuh?_ Kitey? He went to the kitey?” He put his head down on the workbook. “That’s not right, is it?”

“No, it’s not kitey. But what else does C say?”

“It says…” Gladio stopped to sing the song under his breath, _the A say ah ah ah and it says ey ey ey…_ “It says _sss?”_

 _“_ That’s right. Let’s try again.”

“Sitey? Wait. I says _ih…_ City? He went to the city!” Gladiolus rocketed out of his chair with a whoop. “He went to the city! I did it! Thank you, you’re the best, Jared!”

He attached himself to Jared’s leg, hugging him tight. Someday, he was going to be as strong and fine a man as his father. Jared patted his head. “You simply needed a push, but you did all the work yourself, Gladiolus. You should be very proud. Why don’t you tell your father when he comes home?”

“Yeah! I’ll read it to him. Like a present, except the present is me!”

“I daresay, that is the best gift you could give him.”

+

He _hated_ saying bye-bye to Nana. Why did she have to go back to Lestallum? Why couldn’t she stay with them?

And anyway, they were one chapter from finishing _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. “Nana… you’ll read to me on the video phone, right?” That’s what Mom did whenever she went back to Altissia.

Nana knelt, putting her skin hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, pumpkin. But if you want to know the story, you know how to find out.”

Gladio didn’t _wanna_ read it himself. He wanted her to read it for him—she was the _best_. She did all the voices for the animals, including Aslan’s rumble. Gladio could listen to her _forever_ , snuggled up into her shiny metal arm. Which he wasn’t supposed to play with, ‘cause it was expensive and she needed that arm to do things.

Like hold him. She gave the _best_ hugs. Like the goodbye hug she gave him then.

 

After a few days, he couldn’t _wait_ anymore. He sat down and did it—they went back through the wardrobe, back to Tenebrae.

And Nana was so excited to talk about the ending with him—he’d have to read another book.

+

“The Malboro at the End of this Book,” he read, angling the book with one hand so Iris could see it. “ _Wait, what did that say?_ ”

It was hard, because he had to hold her in the special ‘tiny baby’ way with the other hand. His dad said he had to support her neck, because she hadn’t trained it yet. Iris watched him instead of the book, eyes all big and red and pretty. Her face was all chubby round.

Gladio fumbled to turn the page with one hand, jostling the baby in the process. She whimpered at him. Which was when Dad found them. “There you two are. Did you get Iris out of the bassinet?” He came over to check on the baby.

“Yep! I wanted to read her a story!” He smiled. Dad’d told him to be a good big brother, butGladio wasn’t gonna. He was gonna be the _best_ big brother. “See?”

Dad looked at the two of them and finally smiled. “How about I hold Iris, and you can read? Looks like your hands are a bit full.”

Curled up at his dad’s side, reading to his new favorite person? Yeah. Best day ever.


End file.
